Revealed – the spending habits of Scottish ‘millenials’

Why millenials aren’t settling down and are, instead, spending and saving where they can

Millennials are a generation often discussed in a negative light, but actually, they are now older than many people think, and make up a significant part of our workforce.

There are various definitions of when exactly the millennial generation starts and ends, but they all begin around the early ’80s and end in the very early 2000s. This means that millennials account for just about all of our students, but also people in their mid thirties – many of whom are now fairly advanced in their careers and are a key demographic for many businesses.

Edinburgh

Millennials – why aren’t they settling down?

Millennials have been noted to be delaying things that were considered key life milestones to the previous generations like buying a home and starting a family, and they tend to get a bad rap for this despite the fact the economy in which they are expected to do these things is vastly different to that their parents reached those milestones in.

However, the idea that millennials aren’t doing these things because they are spending money frivolously rather than saving is actually something of a fallacy. A recent survey on millennial spending habits shows some things about millennial spending and saving that go against the way they are often presented in the media.

Millennials are saving where they can

The study in question showed that millennials, on average, put 6.7% of their money into some form of saving plan or investment fund. This is actually above average. What they are saving for is usually exactly the life milestones that people criticise them for putting off, with a house and car ranking first and second respectively. The third thing they are saving for is retirement – which is quite responsible compared to the image they have of wasting all their income of hipster food and designer brands.

Millennials are spending in retail stores

Another interesting revelation about millennials is that while they love being online, they are also big supporters of physical shops, with around 54% of their purchases made in an actual shop rather than online. It seems millennials still enjoy going out shopping and also like to see some kinds of product in person before they buy.

It is useful to look at data and see what millennials really do rather than working with stereotypes about them which are often false, especially if you want to market to millennials as a business.